


Sharashka

by uumuu



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amorality, Gen, I don't know how I feel about this fic, Implied/Referenced Torture, It is not a nice fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2233179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curufin goes over to Morgoth, with a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“What makes you think I am not here of my own volition?”

There was no trace of hesitation in Curufin's eyes as he looked up at Morgoth, no quaver in his voice. 

“Your own volition?” Morgoth jeered from his throne. Curufin could feign dauntlessness all he wanted, but it was a futile endeavour. He had been seized and dragged to Angband much like his older brother had been, and with the same prospects.

“Do you believe I would have been so foolish as to recklessly leave my soldiers behind while surrounded by orcs after what happened to my father and brother?” rebutted Curufin, as if able to read the Vala's mind. His tone was the condescending tone one uses to talk to a hopelessly obtuse audience. 

Sauron loured, and lashed Curufin across the face, without moving from where he stood, next to the throne.

“What would your intention be then?” Morgoth asked.

Curufin scowled, a trickle of blood rolling down his left cheek, and twisted in an attempt to free himself from the grasp of the orcs sinking their claws into both his arms. Morgoth nodded to them to let him go. The elf was unarmed, and there was nothing he could do against a Vala and his Úmaiar. Curufin pulled himself tall. His next words were carefully measured. “Our objective was to defeat you and regain the Silmarilli. I have come to realize that it is...impracticable, therefore I decided to opt for a more convenient arrangement: ally myself with you, and be close to them, if reclaiming them is beyond my capability.”

The proposal was a knavish one, and coming from an elf in Curufin's position took Morgoth off-guard. It also made him suspicious. “Your father would not approve of this.”

“Many things have happened already that my father would not have wanted.”

“What about your brothers?” Not even their father's death, and the hatred of their own kin had, so far, been able to disrupt their compact.

“My brothers,” Curufin scoffed, with a mix of exasperation and bitter disillusion. “What have my brothers been doing to fulfill our Oath? Has any progress been made in over 400 years?”

“It is no wonder that your eldest brother would be cautious after his...sojourn here,” Morgoth pointedly observed, but still Curufin showed no signs of being intimidated.

“Nelyafinwë's reluctance to take drastic action is due to political considerations. He has always been too conciliatory, your muddling has nothing to do with his current attitude. And did you not send him to Thangorodrim because you were unable to break him to your will?”

“He would have been, in due time.” Maedhros's resilience had been noteworthy, but it wouldn't have lasted forever. Still, Morgoth couldn't keep a hint of annoyance from his voice. “I do not deem it judicious on your part to gainsay the one you claim you wish to serve, at any rate.”

“The fact that I want to enter your service does not entail a desire on my part to renounce every single one of my beliefs, unless your most coveted achievement is to be a Lord of witless dupes.” Curufin cast a scornful glance at Sauron as he spoke, further sharpening the Úmaia's hostility. “If you only want to see me grovel, then you would do as well to put me to torture right now.” 

“I will do it, if I judge it necessary, do not doubt,” the Vala grimly rejoined, and the orcs hissed their approval. “I have been...informed you had a son, right before the Darkening. Such an unfortunate time for a child to be born. And then, for him to lose his mother and grandfather while still an infant. Are you ready to abandon him too?”

“He is even more useless than my brothers, a spineless disgrace to my name. I cannot lay my hopes in him.”

The trenchant criticism that underlined Curufin's words took Morgoth by surprise, again. From somebody so devoted to his father as him he would have expected more indulgent consideration for a son. He shifted on his throne and leant forward. Curufin held his gaze, only shivered when he prised his mind, insinuating his will inside it like a snake coils around its prey. The tortuous tangle of emotions he found there was suggestive of a lacerated spirit, a warped intellect, but nothing that could contradict the veracity of his statement.

“You are, in essence, giving up,” Sauron spat. “You will be forsworn.”

“I thought perhaps Melkor could free me,” Curufin returned, in provocation. He deliberately reached behind his back with his right arm to grab the loose single braid that started halfway down the length of his hair, and throw it over his right shoulder to smooth it out, with poise befitting of a treasured guest in an old friend's home.

Morgoth sat back and appraised the elf more seriously, at once galled and intrigued by his audacity. 

It took unfeeling audacity for someone such as Curufin to offer his allegiance to the Vala his father had named enemy, against whom his brothers and people were waging bitter war. Entering his service equated self-condemnation, he would never be able to go back, never be able to wash the infamy from himself. Morgoth's lips produced his best imitation of a smile. There would be a vicious satisfaction in that if Curufin's treason would prove to be truthful, and if it didn't, he would be equally gratified to make him pay for it. He could in any case use the move to his advantage, for it would lead the Eldar to doubt Curufin's brothers too.

But above all there was the fact that Curufin wasn't simply a son of Fëanor – he was the one who took after his father the most, the one who had inherited his skill, the one Fëanor himself had (supposedly) favoured above the rest. His audacity was the same as his father's. To have him in his power, and as willing puppet, would crown his victory in the most tantalizing way.

“We shall see to that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sharashka](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka) is basically a sort of Angband.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a lot of unpleasant stuff in this chapter, so be warned.

In the following days, Curufin amply proved his fealty. He answered every question about the organization of his brothers' and his (former) realm – the exact number of soldiers at their disposal, the location of secret reserves, fall-back plans and everything else – without any need for coercion. Much of the information he provided was confirmed by what Morgoth's own spies had reported, lending credibility to what they could never have found out.

Five weeks after the pass of Aglon had been attacked and Curufin had found his way to Angband in the turmoil that followed, one of his brothers was captured as he searched for him. Curufin was charged with his interrogation and torture.

The orcs and Úmaiar quivered with excitement, intrigued by this new development, of an elf turning on his ilk, his own brothers, and wondered if Curufin would really be able to carry out his new duty.

Celegorm was defiant at first, and screamed and raged against his brother, rattling the chains that kept his arms tied wide open above his head. Curufin returned his questions and rebukes, as well as the desperate professions of affection mingled with them, with soul-crushing silence and pain, remaining impassible even to his brother's groans of agony when he put a red hot iron to his chest.

Celegorm started whining pitifully and uncontrolledly then, imploring his brother and reminding him of the love between them, and of their father. Curufin merely ordered the orcs assisting him (and relishing the proceedings) to gag the prisoner. 

“I strongly advise you to be more cooperative” was his frigid remark as the orcs lowered the chains and forced Celegorm to kneel.

Sauron, however reluctant to admit it, was favourably impressed by Curufin's cruelty. His treatment of Celegorm was certainly not as severe as it could have been, but more vicious than he had expected. Morgoth, pleased beyond measure to witness the collapse of the Fëanorians' unity, the last vestiges of Fëanor's soul, ordered that the weapons which had been taken from the elf when he had arrived should be returned to him, so that he could use them in his new capacity as captain of Angband.

Still, Celegorm would not surrender, would not give himself over no matter what torments Curufin inflicted upon him, no matter how insistently he urged him.

“He will succumb, sooner or later. He always follows me in the end. He will have to accept that there is nothing else left for him now.”

“He is your brother, you know him best,” Sauron flatly observed, as he passed Curufin a new flayer.

“If you could get me one more of my other brothers...”

Sauron's eyes narrowed. “You do not give the orders here.”

Curufin shut his mouth, and bowed.

*

Soon after, Curufin was put in charge of the forges and of the work the thralls did in them. Sauron advised against it, but Morgoth wanted the elf to put his father's teachings into use for him. 

Curufin set to the task with the same determination he had showed – and continued to apply – in punishing his brother for his stubborn refusals. He immediately implemented several changes, reorganizing the work space and introducing more sophisticated, sometimes experimental, techniques, so that production could significantly be increased, and the quality of the weapons and other tools improved. 

Morgoth praised him, and not solely for his meticulous efficiency. He had ordered Curufin to send a message to Maedhros. Curufin wrote it in his own hand with words that could have chilled Dor Daidelos all over again, and entrusted it to a messenger crow with the added intimation of Celegorm's cut-off ring finger.

Sauron did gradually come to a grudging acceptance, though not entirely free of mistrust, and never strong enough to erase his discontent for the favour he had won from Morgoth.

The thralls hated him with single-minded ferocity, and cursed him and his father when he marched through the murky, airless pits where they worked to inspect them. It was the greatest betrayal, an enormity without precedent and unlikely to be ever surpassed. Many were, at the same time, secretly relieved at being supervised by one of their own, rather than one of the umaiar, and miserably comforted by Curufin's very presence. If one of Fëanor's children had chosen to give up, it made their own submission understandable, and more excusable. Curufin laid out clear rules for them, established hierarchies and a rigid system of interdependent functions, and obtained their collaboration, employing whatever means he deemed convenient to. 

*

The insult had been a mere mutter, but sound was amplified in the pits, and Curufin had keen ears.

“Filthy son of a vile madman.”

The thrall whose work Curufin was inspecting froze and looked down, knowing, by direct experience, the venomous ire insults against Fëanor could awake in the other elf.

Curufin turned in the direction the voice had come from and quickly identified the speaker. He strode across the low-roofed cave that provided workspace to nearly fifty smiths and stood before him.

It was a young elf, probably just past his majority, and only recently captured by orcs who had managed to overcome a patrol in the outskirts of Ard-Galen.

Curufin stared him down until he began to tremble, then hit him with his iron studded cane in the stomach. The youth doubled over and coughed, desperately gasping for air.

“Nírwë,” Curufin called without taking his soulless gaze off the wheezing thrall. “Have you not explained the rules to the new recruit?”

“I- I- was...” the elf stuttered, fear-gelid sweat breaking on his forehead. “I was too tired,” he finally admitted.

“It is your duty to make sure the elves under your supervision behave in a seemly manner. I will see to the improvement of your own understanding of that later.” The elf bowed his head, inured to the consequences of perceived disobedience. Curufin looked around until his eyes rested on another, more haggard looking, thrall. “You.”

The elf in question raised his inert eyes from his work and obeyed the unworded command.

Curufin didn't look at him as he approached, he forced the new thrall to look up again instead. “Do you know why some of your companions do not speak? You do not, your overseer ought to have told you, and it seems nobody else did.”

A numbing dread gripped the young man's heart – there could be only one reason, he knew, but bringing that idea to the surface was too frightful. 

“Open your mouth and show it to your colleague,” Curufin ordered the other thrall as soon as he was standing between himself and the young man.

When the elf didn't move, Curufin grabbed the tress at the back of his head (the thralls' hair was shorn before they began to work in the forges, save for a lock at the nape, which could be used for handling them, if necessary), and pulled savagely on it. 

The older thrall opened his mouth. 

The youth looked, too terrified not to, and saw that it was as he had surmised. 

The other had no tongue.

“This is what happens when you insult my father,” Curufin asserted. His purpose exhausted, he pushed the thrall away and stood before the young man again.

“How can you do this? You're an elf, you're like us! You- you should be fighting!” the youth half-screamed half-gasped. 

“Shall we cut his tongue too, Sir?” one of the orcs that always accompanied Curufin asked.

“No, not this time.” Curufin advanced and cupped the young man's left cheek. The youth flinched at the touch as if scorched. “Who are your parents?”

“My- my parents are of Finarfin's people.”

“Worthless nonentities. I could be a friend to you, and a father as well as a mentor. Working here is a privilege, but it is earned with respect for your older companions, me, my father, and your only Lord and King.” Even with the bolder, and more frequent, incursions there weren't many new slaves and he had to be careful to maintain steady workmanship for the forges - most new prisoners were usually dispatched to the mines, where their lifespans could only be stretched so long. “You would do well not to forget it.”

“Th- this-...this is-...you-"

“You saw the elf tied to the wheel?” 

It was a rhetorical question; it was impossible to ignore the sniveling figure for anybody who headed towards the forges. 

“That is my brother.”

The youth's naive, still florid, face went completely white and his protest died in gut-wrenching stupor. It was easy, for Curufin, to tell the exact moment his resistance shattered.

“I will lash you at the end of your shift.” The orc snickered – the elf had not been well versed in pain at first, but he had become as good with the whip as any of his fellow orcs. “Consider it one more privilege. Now go back to your work and show me what you can do. I assume you are a silversmith, right?”

The young elf only stared back. Curufin swung the cane to a couple inches from his face.

“Y-yes, my m-m-mother studied in Alqualondë.” 

“You will soon surpass that kind of inferior craftsmanship here, with the right amount of application.”

Curufin waited until the youth nodded, and went back to inspecting. 

*

Morgoth enjoyed calling him Curufinwë, the name he had shared with his father, but even sweeter was to call him Atarincë, to underline of how far he had fallen from what his father had been, and what his father had wanted him to be, still gloating even after months had become years at the delightful sort of revenge that was having him do his work.

Curufin did look dismayed whenever Morgoth drawled the syllables – and it was the only change in his expression from unflinching, merciless resolve – when he was allowed to stand at the foot of his throne to bask in his father's light, that was so dear to him that he had turned against everything his father had stood for for it.

“What do you think are his thoughts now, wherever he may be?” Morgoth inquired in a caressing voice, as if truly concerned.

Curufin felt his throat tighten, and had to appeal to all his self-control to respond. “I believe-...I believe he would understand. He knows that whatever I do, I do out of love of him.”

Morgoth inclined his head in mocking commiseration and laughed. Curufin's mind, with his obsessive adoration for his father (an adoration he could not comprehend in its entirety) was a constantly renewed source of diversion. “It is bizarre, what devotion can lead you to, is it not? What can you tell me about brother?”

“Some progress has been made. He has started to listen, when I talk to him,” Curufin reported, and Morgoth nodded. “It will take more time to fully win him, nonetheless.”

“You still have some.”

*

Maedhros tried to keep Curufin's betrayal a secret, claiming that both he and Celegorm were prisoners. He never told anybody, save his brothers (because he couldn't have kept it from them), about the message he had received.

It threatened to be revealed to all when Curufin was sent to destroy several outposts of the Fëanorians and the neighbouring Arafinwëans at the head of specially trained orc squads. Orcs that knew the layout and weaknesses of the places to the very last detail, and followed the star of Fëanor, glittering against black iron.

Maedhros did what he could to placate the tumult that followed – for all they knew Curufin could be manipulated, forced to collaborate against his will.

“He was in too good a shape according to the survivors for that to be true,” Angrod nearly shouted at his oldest cousin. “He did not seem much different from his usual self.”

“Morgoth would have no use for a starved, ill-used war commander, methinks,” Maedhros cuttingly remarked. “He is probably using Celegorm as leverage, and Curufin's appearance to divide us. We shall not let him succeed.”

“If we can survive the swords he has him craft.” Aegnor threw his oldest cousin an unsheated sword. Maedhros, unprepared, failed to catch it with is only hand and it clattered on the ground with a loud, harsh sound. “Pure Fëanorian work, sharper and deadlier than the ones we use. They cut through our cuirasses like butter.”

Maedhros bent to pick the weapon and studied it. He himself had very limited knowledge of smithcraft, but he had handled a good number of swords by then, and he could tell that it was a truly formidable blade.

“I will have Tyelperinquar examine it and improve our defences against it.”

“How providential,” Aegnor snarled, “that your unfortunate brother has at least left a son that is our ally.”

*

“It falls within your purview, I suppose, to still be suspicious.” 

Sauron held Curufin's chin in a firm grasp, looking down into his eyes, probing. “What you have been doing so far is...superficial, no matter how remarkable. Would you be ready to kill your brother if there were no other recourse?”

“If the King orders it, I shall do it.” Curufin returned, flatly, without delay. He knew that Morgoth would want to keep Celegorm alive as a pawn, bait to use against the remaining Fëanorians when the he would launch his next – definitive – attack on them.

Sauron was aware of it too. “You could maim him. Something more permanent than gashes and broken bones.”

Curufin raised a questioning eyebrow. “His body is much more marked than our oldest brother's was when he was returned to us, and he is almost subdued. Am I to infer that you were not...prepared to properly fulfill your duties at the time?”

Sauron ignored the taunt. “Even deep scars can heal on an elven body with the right amount of time and will.”

“Heal? Here?”

“Limbs cannot be replaced.”

“Replaced,” Curufin repeated, his tongue lingering on the word. Malice glinted in his eyes. “Are you perhaps simply afraid that _I_ might displace you?”

Sauron bristled, and his hand slithered to Curufin's throat. He was the most loyal, the stanchest of Morgoth's servants. The one he had always relied on the most, not a lowly elf, too cowardly to pursue his own goals. He couldn't tolerate the fact that he was now permitted to witness their decision-making, and know of their plans in advance, too. “You are insignificant, a contemptible inferior, disposable at any time.”

“Mairon, the great Mairon...you can make yourself taller, and fairer, than me, but you have not been able to allay the King's fixation with my father. Am I wrong?” Curufin hissed, even as Sauron's grip cut his supply of air.

“As if -”

“Your fate is in his hands, as is mine. You known he does not tolerate disputes.” There was no way around the truthfulness of those words, and Sauron was forced to release the elf. Curufin inhaled deeply, readjusted the collar of his black and gold surcoat and raised his chin again. “I will follow his orders. You better do too.”


	3. Chapter 3

It was over fifty years after he had started his new life in Angband that Sauron was sent to foment dissent among the growing population of Men in Estolad, and that Curufin judged it best to act. Sauron would be caught in a spider web and would not return; he trusted his brothers and son to have done their part of the work, and to proceed with the rest, as he had instructed them. The preparations for Morgoth's next attack progressed rapidly, and Celegorm was at his limit. It would be his only chance, a dearly paid one, and he had to be precise, any mistake would be fatal.

He strutted into the throne room from one of the secondary entrances. Morgoth, alone, was concentrated in following what was afoot in Estolad. 

The heels of his boots clicked distinctly on the uneven stone floor, but he didn't need to conceal his presence.

“Atarincë.” Morgoth glowered at him reprovingly. “What do you think you are doing here at this time?”

Curufin stopped before the throne.

“I'm taking them back.”

“Taking -”

“My brothers and I have only one objective,” the elf said, pouring his repressed loathing into that one sentence, while clutching the diamond he wore around his neck. Morgoth had wanted it to be in plain sight at all times – it was made of Fëanor's last material remains, turned into a pathetic, valueless bauble by his son's distorted attachment. Curufin now held it in the cupped palm of his right hand, and a previously dormant brilliance burst from it, not profuse, yet sharp, like a ray of light reflected by glass. Morgoth made to stand, to put the elf in his place, to consign him to torment and death, as he deserved, but he couldn't. He couldn't, because the brilliance from the diamond resonated with the light of the Silmarilli, and they started blazing, and burned. The rending pain descended from the Vala's head down through every joint every nook of his body, and deprived him of air. His limbs contracted and he slowly – at the mercy of the the light and the last shreds of Fëanor's will in it – crumpled down. 

Only when his cumbersome frame slipped from the throne he managed to speak, out of sheer fury at realizing how he had been tricked.

“Traitorous...dog.”

“A coward and a losel is all you are,” retorted Curufin, but Morgoth couldn't hear him. 

The elf deftly cut the Silmarils from the iron crown with the knife Telchar had gifted him for that very purpose, with his blessing (he didn't doubt for a single moment that it could do the work it had been meant for, or that a Dwarf's blessing could surpass Mandos' curse), and hid them in the pouch he kept attached to his belt, under the whip and iron-studded cane he was used to carrying.

Then he hastened out of the room, putting the diamond around his neck again, and headed towards the tiny cell where his brother was held. He had very little time; Morgoth would wake up sooner or later, or somebody could notice his state, but his position allowed him to stride through the fortress unimpeded.

Celegorm was huddled in a corner of the grimy hole where he had spent every day and every pain-riddled hour of the past 50 years, except the constantly renewed bouts of torture.

“Tyelco.” Curufin crouched over his brother and gently took his face in his hands (the gesture was unnecessary; the old endearment would have sufficed). “I got them.”

Celegorm opened his eyes and tried to smile. “I knew you would.”

“Hold on a little longer. We'll soon be out of here.”

He unlocked the chains keeping his brother tied to the wall and floor of the cell, and reattached one to his wrist shackles to use as a leash. He headed towards the eastern portion of the prison, where the entrance to the mines was.

“Taking him down for a show, Búrz-ghâsh?”

Curufin stopped to greet the old orc captain. Having learnt their tongue was one more skill he could use to his advantage. “Yes. Some of the recruits from the last raid think they'll get away with being recalcitrant. I will show them otherwise.” He had started taking his brother down for special torture sessions in the mines precisely so that nobody would remark on their descent on that one occasion. It had made the orcs more well-disposed to him too. “Could you send a couple of your men to help me?”

“Of course, have fun.” Curufin was the only elf whose smile they liked, and whose smooth, luminous appearance didn't jar. A companion, though outwardly different.

After greeting the captain, Curufin increased the pace, growling rebukes at Celegorm when he stumbled or lagged behind. They soon reached the mines, but instead of continuing towards the centre of the complex, where select prisoners were punished and kept on display as warning to the others, they swung left and ducked into one of the ventilation tunnels, which was also used to dispose of the corpses of dead miners. The area wasn't guarded; orcs believed that the gruesome connotation would keep the slaves away from the place.

There, masked by a crooked formation in the rock, was the secret tunnel used by few fortunate thralls to flee. Curufin cut Celegorm's bonds and they slipped into it, crawling in the low passage as quickly as they could.

It was an excruciating trek for Celegorm, whose whole body was a canvas of sufferance, and when they emerged on the plains south of the eastern side of the Ered Engrin, Curufin took him on his back for the last part of their escape, a desperate run through the dark of the jagged wasteland and the smoke that clung heavily to the air in the oppressive, chilling darkness. Curufin stumbled and faltered, but couldn't use any light (least of all the Silmarilli). The orcs had surely made sense of his absence by then, they would set the wolves free at any time.

At last, when he began to feel exhausted, felt Celegorm tremble and sob against his back, and fear, the fear he had kept at bay for so long, surged in his heart (fear that it all could have been in vain), they were met by a small group of riders from Lothlann, with Maglor at their head.

At dawnbreak, under a gentle, soothing rain, they arrived in Himring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sharashka is also a reference to [this fictional person](http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Revolver_Ocelot), whose double/triple-dealing (and torturing) tendencies inspired this story, along with the fact that the Ñoldor show too little initiative and inventiveness in dealing with Morgoth (generally I think the Silmarillion is a lot of wasted potential in terms of what the Elves could have come up with to defeat Morgoth).
> 
> The attack on the pass of Aglon takes place around the year 312, the unrest in Estolad sometime between 365 and 369. A couple months ago I read speculations (on some forum) that the one who impersonates Amlach in the Men's debate over whether to leave Beleriand or not might have been Sauron himself, and I chose to go with that here. Curufin obviously has a way of communicating with his brothers (if they had palantíri they could have had similar devices).
> 
> Búrz-ghâsh should mean Black Fire in the language of the orcs.


	4. Chapter 4

“I cannot believe that you of all people would assent to this folly!” Fingolfin slammed his fist on the table. Maedhros had summoned him to Himring with a slyly worded message that spoke of a life threatening matter. He had complied with the request, notwithstanding his position, because he had been troubled by the delicate circumstance created by Celegorm and Curufin's (presumed) captivity, and had assumed there might have been a development concerning it. His assumption had proven correct, insofar as Maedhros's actual intention had been for him to be informed of their return, and of their plan.

What he had become privy to had nauseated, upset, and thoroughly disheartened him.

Maedhros's reply to Fingolfin's outraged protest was calmer – and more brazen – than the situation would have warranted. “I never heard you propose any viable plan to attack.”

“Viable? What you contrived is a monstrosity,” Fingolfin reasserted, scathingly. It was as if logic, and common sense – all the principles and beliefs the Eldar had always held sacred – had been subverted, and he found himself talking to strangers. 

“The Enemy is inexorable. Meeting ruthlessness with ruthlessness is the only way for us to prevail.”

The High King shivered. Himring was exposed to the elements, and colder than Hithlum, but physical cold was almost welcome in comparison to his nephews' detachment. He risked a glance in Curufin's direction. Fëanor's younger face scowled at him across the small table. 

“And become as him? Have you seen the state your brother's in? Do you _realise_ what he was put through in Angband – by your other brother?” 

“Do _you_ suppose I forgot my own captivity? Angband is the negation and perversion of life as it should be, and that's precisely why my brothers and I agree that it needs to be destroyed, at whatever cost,” Maedhros rebutted. “Tyelcormo was perfectly conscious of what would happen to him. I myself detailed to him, and to Curufinwë, what they would have to endure, in their different roles.” He had done more than that; he had allowed his brothers to experience it all beforehand through his memories. It was the only way for his torment to acquire a new, more beneficial, significance. “Carnistir has suffered unutterably too even staying here, but it was all for a purpose, which has been achieved. We have the Silmarilli, and Þauron is our prisoner.”

On the table lay the three gems, and the diamond – a jewel made of their father's ashes and mixed with the substance of a crystal into which Curufin had trapped light reflected from the Silmarils, in an abortive attempt to analyse and imitate Fëanor's making of them – which had apparently played a fundamental role in the charade.

Fingolfin only saw suffering.

“How many other people have you tortured?”

“Quite many, it would have been useless to count.” Fingolfin sprang up, bile rising in his throat together with the urge to slap some sense back into his nephew – his calm was not natural (Fëanor's fury had been better; Fëanor would never have resorted to such despicable ploys) – but Curufin didn't budge. “My brother is the only sacrifice. The others would have been tortured all the same, whether I was there or not, whether I agreed to it or not.”

“Your actions made it easier for them to be. You willingly contributed to it, by your own admission.” 

“Many more would be without further action on our part.” Curufin stood up, and started pacing the room with his hands clasped behind his back and his loose braid laid over his shoulder. “I know the layout of the fortress, and I know what kind of weapons they use, and how they fight. They will not be able to alter either anytime soon. Urulóci are growing up in the depths of Angamando, but they are not as dangerous yet as Laurundo has become. Speed is essential. Moringotto is weakened, he has lost Þauron and the Silmarilli can be used against him...if we act quickly, we can overcome him.”

“We have an agreement with the Dwarves, and I have entered negotiations with Men. Amlach's people have already pledged themselves to me, and I count many others to do the same...netting Þauron like a helpless deer while he attempted to trick them was a very powerful demonstration of our effectiveness,” Maedhros promptly put in.

Fingolfin had seen the úmaia, bound tightly to a pole with a shimmering net that sunk and cut into his flesh, all power sapped out of him by the Silmarils, subjected to the prodding and taunting of the Men guarding him. “Elves will not trust you as easily.” His nephews should have taken that into consideration, but they seemed to be utterly blinded by their ill-gained success.

“Your people, as well as the Þindar, do not need to know that Curufinwë and Tyelcormo have returned, or how.” Maedhros straightened on his chair, laying his stump on the armrest (almost a dart in Fingolfin's direction), and his eyes darkened. “I have not surrendered the crown for you to thwart our efforts with dithering, bowing to useless scruples.” 

“Useless,” Fingolfin whispered back, still battling with disbelief. He slowly sat down again. “...we are Elves, not orcs...not torturers and deceivers...you all seem to have forgotten it!”

Curufin's face set in sharp lines, an intersection of hatred and rancour, and he remained immobile next to his oldest brother's seat.

“You censure me for allowing a ruse my brothers were determined to carry out. What about Írissë, what about your daughter? What have you been doing to find her, rescue her from where she is?”

Fingolfin gritted his teeth and stared strickenly into Maedhros's eyes. He couldn't reply. Aredhel had been gone for over sixty years, and though he had surmised that she was in Nan Elmoth (she couldn't have been anywhere else; she had crossed Nan Dungortheb on her own, her cousins' lands couldn't have posed any danger for her), and had written to Thingol to request leave to search for her there, he hadn't been able to do anything. He had forsaken her.

“Uncle,” Maglor intoned, and it sounded like an insult. “We played Moringotto like a fiddle. He succumbed to his own hatred and envy for Father. He only needs to be terminated.” He was dissonatly cheerful, almost euphoric, and lounged on a settee, lazily petting one of the many cats that wintered inside the fortress.

“You will order all your subjects to rally to the North. We attack in six weeks from now.” Maedhros had never lost his kingly bearing – he had a natural inclination to it, his father's forwardness combined with his mother's more subtly decisive nature. Fingolfin had had in ally in him, but never a supporter. 

“Six weeks? How do you expect all our troops to be ready in so short a time?”

“They will.”

Maglor nodded. “They will under pain of infamy and exile. Anybody who refuses to hearken to your command will be branded a traitor.”

“Send the messages immediately,” Maedhros intimated, then smiled. Those who had only ever seen his public smile would have been bewildered by how snake-like it was. “We have fulfilled our Oath, we have the Silmarilli. I could up and be gone, leave you to struggle against Moringotto with fruitless valour, and bear the brunt of his rage for his humiliation. If I stay, it is out of obligation, but I will not pander to your self-righteousness, and I will hold you responsible, if our only possibility to achieve complete victory turns to failure.” It was a provocation, Maedhros would never abandon the struggle against Morgoth so long as he there was the likelihood (no matter how slight) to overthrow him, and to avenge his father's death.

“You can ensure that nobody is ever going to be captured and tortured again, as Curufinwë said,” Maglor reiterated, and a conniving look passed between him and his younger brother. 

The stakes were high. Fingolfin himself had been planning to propose an attack, even knowing that their strength would very likely be no match for Morgoth's forces, because the prolonged inactivity disquieted him. He couldn't afford to turn down his nephews' offer, however questionable, however ignoble, if he thought of the gain to be had by it (because it was lamentably true: they never had a way to defeat Morgoth). Even if the very prospect of fighting side by side with them, with all he knew, was repulsive to him. “I will organise the attack. But you -” his disgust-filled eyes lanced into Curufin's own, “- when it is over – and pray that it ends favourably as you all appear to believe –...you will have to answer for what you have done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urulóci are the dragons and Laurundo is Glaurung.
> 
> I'm sorry for bringing fiddles into this.


	5. Chapter 5

The messages preceded Fingolfin in Dorthonion, but had little effect. When he reached the mountain-shielded plain where Angrod and Aegnor had made their abode five days after leaving Himring, on his way back west, no preparations had been commenced yet. Convincing Finarfin's sons of the expediency and viability of the attack took three more days. They had suffered from the orcs' increasingly savage incursions more than anybody else, and imputed them to Curufin's betrayal. That, and their long-standing grievances, made them disinclined (to put it mildly) to undertake any action of such magnitude in concert with the Fëanorians. It was lucky that they were not to know for a while yet that Curufin had truly been more of a guest than a prisoner in Angband.

Fingolfin suppressed the repugnance that knowledge had instilled in him, and untiringly dispelled his nephews' objections and concerns. He fretted at the delay, and managed to impress the urgency of the situation upon them. Having won their approval, and ensured their collaboration, he continued west and south towards Tol Sirion, where he was to meet both Orodreth and Finrod. He hoped they had already started mobilizing their troops. 

At the southernmost tip of the Fern of Serech he was met by Fingon, who had ridden through Eithel Sirion with minimal escort to intercept him. It would have been banal to say that he was glad to see him, despite the fact that he should not have been travelling so lightly. Fingon took after his mother, in looks as in temperament. Seeing him reminded Fingolfin of her, and of the joyfulness of their youth, which seemed to him to be definitively lost. 

“Why this haste?” Fingon asked, as soon as they were alone in Fingolfin's tent. He had been the one to read the messages ordering the immediate assembly of the army, with the added specification to recruit any person of suitable age that was willing to fight, irrespective of status or experience. “What has Maedhros told you?” Expectancy – of hope mixed with concern – was plain on his face. “Has something grave happened?”

Fingolfin wearily sat down on a chair, and motioned for Fingon to do the same. He turned the words in his head before replying. He couldn't disclose too much. “Maedhros and I have agreed that the time is ripe for an attack. You know how worried I am by the long interval since Moringotto's last attack, and the orcs roaming at liberty over Ard-Galen. They are surely readying to strike. We can and must pre-empt it.”

Fingolfin did his best to sound decisive, but Fingon knew his father too well to be fooled.

“What troubles you?” he asked, leaning in to better gauge his face.

“Obviously the risks attached to such a venture are weighty, and not all outcomes can be foreseen.” It sounded truthful, and reasonable, but it was a lie, mostly. Curufin had handed him an excruciatingly detailed report of Angband's internal structure, of its forces and resources, down to the amount of iron mined daily from the roots of the Ered Engrin. The only real variable was Morgoth himself. “And there is the matter of the prisoners captured during the recent attacks. There is a high probability they will...be used against us.”

Curufin had also been forthcoming on what Morgoth had been planning to do with Celegorm once he attacked. Fingolfin unconsciously clenched his right fist.

Fingon noted the movement, guessed its significance, if not what caused it, exactly. “Is it about Celegorm and Curufin?” 

Fingolfin did hesitate before answering at the mention of their names. “...yes, it is about them, too...of course.”

“Are they...dead?”

' _In a way, yes_ '. ' _I wish they were_ '. ' _Pretend they are_ ' would have been all suitable, and liberating, replies. “No, no...they aren't.”

Fingolfin had been brooding over them, forgoing sleep and rest. He lowered his gaze – Fingon's anxious gaze was too much to bear – and looked at his own hands.

It would have been easy to dismiss Curufin as a monster, to say that Maedhros had been indelibly tarnished by his captivity, in the exact same manner people were comforted by thinking of Fëanor as insane (because it was convenient to explain their own choices as having been prompted by a madman's ravings. Fingolfin did that too). 

Curufin's sin was not cruelty as such, or indifference to suffering. It was not lack of emotion, either. Curufin felt, perhaps, more keenly than most people, though selectively. What truly set him apart was the fact that he could lock his emotions away, and not be influenced by them, or by any consideration other than the attainment of the goal he strove to, in the least. He could do what his father had been unable to do, and to a damaging degree. 

Fingolfin couldn't tell if it was better than intentional malice. There was only one irrevocable fact. Just like he had become an active participant in the Rebellion by choosing to leave, he became Curufin's (and his brothers') voluntary accomplice by agreeing to attack. He accepted to make use of the fruits of his crimes. The alternative was simply not feasible. If the Fëanorians were to attack all the same, and lose, the only result would be the definitive weakening of the Ñoldor. And if they were to leave, the result could potentially be even more disruptive. Morgoth would, in both eventualities, be left with only one enemy to focus his whole might on.

“Father, what's wrong?” Fingon pressed, unsettled by Fingolfin's indecisive replies and uncharacteristic reticence.

Fingolfin lifted his head again and met his son's dark blue eyes. Sincere eyes. He took Fingon's left hand in his and caressed his face with the other. “Finno, everything is wrong. But it is for the good of everybody. I promise I will explain everything to you once the battle is over. Now we must concentrate on the preparations, there's very little time left. We cannot afford to lose”. He pleaded his son's support, and Fingon nodded. “Have you left orders for the army?”

Fingon attempted a feeble smile, and covered his father's hand with his free one. “No need to worry about that. Aunt is taking care of everything in our absence.”

*

Celebrimbor met his father again, after over half a century of physical separation, when he led the armies of Himlad north, thirteen days before the attack, and delivered the new swords he had forged.

“You have done well,” were the first words Curufin said to him, solemnly, when they were face to face in the main hall in Himring. His praise was sparse, and difficultly earned, even for his son. It was perhaps the one trait in which he differed from his father the most. Fëanor had put his sons on a pedestal, coddled them, made sure that they would feel loved and sustained at all times.

Celebrimbor cast all considerations of propriety aside, and lunged forward to hug him. “I was afraid,” he confessed, without shame and without reserve. “I was afraid I would never see you again.”

Curufin stiffened at the pang of longing his son's words awakened in him. He welcomed the embrace, nevertheless. “Do you have so little faith in me?” 

“It's not that, and you know it,” Celebrimbor countered, and tightened his hold. The dreams by which his father had communicated to him had been permeated by such a morbid sense of oppression that he had, at times, felt the need to get rid of it by dunking himself in water and scrubbing his skin until it stung.

“I know,” Curufin whispered, “I know.”

The people who went back and forth in the hall didn't dare intrude upon their reunion, and ignored them for the most part.

“Are you going to see your uncle?” Curufin asked, when they pulled back, his eyes fastened on his son's. After his wife's death (she had died with his father, and though the double loss had as good as smothered him, and numbed him to everything else for a long time, he had been comforted by the fact that she had died as she would have wanted to), Celebrimbor had become particularly close to Celegorm, who had helped him cope with the grief.

“Is he awake?”

“Yes.”

Celegorm's recovery would be long, but he wasn't in as dire a state as Maedhros had been. Curufin had made sure of that. Celebrimbor unwittingly frowned.

“You can hate me if you want.” Curufin put forward, knowing what his son's opinion on the venture had been. 

Celebrimbor had not supported it, precisely because of the suffering it implied for Celegorm, and the dreadful role it cast his father in (the terrible danger to which it exposed both). Neither of them had listened to his protests. Now that they were back, that his own endeavours were instrumental in achieving their end, in a concerted effort (he was proud of that), it would have been self-righteous and sanctimonious to contemn his father.

“If he doesn't hate you, I don't.” 

“You can hate me in his stead,” Curufin persisted. 

“Do you think you deserve to be hated?”

“People have the right to hate me, if they will, irrespective of what my views are. And of the fact that I will never renege my decisions, nor my actions.”

Celebrimbor smiled an arch smile, used to his father's dismissive evasiveness in the face of anything that didn't signify to him, and reworded his question to get the reply he wanted from him. “Do you want _me_ to hate you?”

“No.” It was a succinct reply, but exhaustive. Curufin felt no need to elaborate on what he deemed obvious. 

“Good,” Celebrimbor said in acknowledgement, with the same pithy firmness as his father's. “Will you wait for me in the forges? There are a couple of matters regarding the armours that I would like to discuss with you.” 

Discussing projects, or even simple technicalities, with his father could be a draining experience. As a young elf, it had often brought him close to tears, and he had only gradually, and with much assiduity, learnt to parry, counter and fully understand his father's criticism. After Angband, after he had been left to fend for himself, he looked forward to it. He had missed the sort of intimate challenge his father alone could provide (he had realized exactly how important it was for him). 

“Of course.”

*

Whenever his duties left him time (but Maglor was helping him; Maedhros was more versed, and more patient in diplomacy, and probably deadlier as a warrior, but no-one could lead an army more effectively than Maglor), Maedhros sat at Celegorm's bedside. Celegorm spoke little at first (simply because he didn't have the strength to), and more often than not he would just sleep. Maedhros was content to hold his hand, and watch over his repose.

The confrontation he knew would occur wasn't long delayed, though it took a different course from the one he had anticipated.

“I know how it was now,” said Celegorm abruptly once, his voice still low and rasping.

Maedhros, whose eyes had been following the pattern of the blanket covering his brother's haggard form, did not reply, but met his gaze. 

Celegorm went on after a long pause in which he took slow, deep breaths. “The pain, what it does to you.” He didn't have to say more. Maedhros knew well, and nodded. “You endured it.”

“You were brave,” Maedhros said. His brother was the one who deserved the praise. He had simply been reckless, and had paid for it. 

“He was always there. All I kept thinking of was that you went through every dreadful minute of it on your own.” Even if his torment had lasted longer than Maedhros's, even if the pain had burned and screamed beyond what he had imagined, he had never lost sight of his and his brother's design. Pain had been tempered by trust, and the knowledge that it was the only way to revenge, that he would be the one to laugh at the end of it. Maedhros had had no reprieve.

“It was not my choice.”

Celegorm closed his eyes for a moment, then silently asked his brother to lie with him in the bed. Maedhros took his clothing off before complying. It was a needless barrier between them (just like flesh was an all too easily destroyed shield for the soul). Both were equally scarred. Celegorm settled in his older brother's arms. Huan, alert to his life-long companion's condition, hopped on the bed and lay at his back. 

“I have nightmares.”

“The nightmares...they never go away,” Maedhros avowed, resting his chin on the top of Celegorm's head. “At least, they haven't until now. But we have the Silmarilli now, and it's like having Father back.”

“It isn't,” Celegorm brusquely denied. The Silmarils held healing, but they couldn't make things right again. Nothing would ever be right again.

“I know...but in a small way it is. Father wants us to have them. If we have them, he is happy.”

Celegorm peered at the single gem over his brother's head. It sat on the nightstand, next to a pitcher. The light flickered gently, as it had, he remembered, in his father's hands the last time he had seen it before he had left for Taniquetil. Celegorm started to cry. Huan whined behind him, and nudged his head with his muzzle.

“Cry all you want. It's good to cry.”


	6. Chapter 6

Nine days before the attack, the encampments for the allied armies of Elves, Dwarves and Men stretched in a long line of banners and tents of all shapes and colours, in the gently sloping plains of Ard-Galen. The High King's troops were stationed in the middle, between the Arafinwëans to the west and the Fëanorians to the east.

Only the people of Thargelion hadn't taken position yet. Small companies from scattered Sindarin tribes continued to arrive almost daily, and they would either join their closest of kin in whichever camp they were, or swell the contingent sent by Círdan. A few odd Avari had arrived too, but settled on their own on the eastern side, past the rune-emblazoned banners of the Dwarves, next to the Green Elves who shunned the vicinity of Men, rather than that of the Eldar. 

It was a numerous army – surpassing even the expectation of Maedhros, who had sent messengers far and wide in East Beleriand, reaching out to anybody who might be enticed by the prospect of an attack on Morgoth, anybody who would not avoid war by hiding or fleeing – if not a particularly cohesive one. 

There hadn't been any incidents of note, any insurmountable obstacle, even with the very limited time allotted to the deployment of the troops. Fingolfin had tried to obtain a postponement of the attack, but Maedhros was immovable. He had chosen the day, he said, heeding Dwarvish readings of the stars' courses, which marked that date as exceptionally favourable to the sort of undertaking they were to embark upon. Its auspiciousness was also reinforced by the coincidence that it was exactly seven nights before one of the most important Dwarvish festivals, the one in honour of their dead ancestors. It was primarily a way to make the Dwarves more well-disposed, but Maedhros didn't discount the import of their beliefs. He knew the power of words and frames of mind. 

“And we do need some good fortune.” 

It had soon become a topic for heated discussion, around the soldiers' bonfires as in the officers' tents, that Celebrimbor would not take part in the battle, and that the armies of Himlad would by led by Amrod and Amras. Of course, the soldiers whispered, Maedhros would not want him to be there, and chance having to fight his own father. Of course he would not want his nephew to be there to remind them of him.

There was in fact no need for any reminding. The murmurs and the speculation made it so that Curufin's absence hovered over the lush meadows like ominous storm-clouds, as one with the smoke that rose from the peaks of the Ered Engrin. There wasn't, when Aegnor and Angrod brought before the High King two escaped thralls, two wizened, piteous wrecks of beauty and vigour whom their scouts had found not far from their camp, on that sixth to last day. 

Fingolfin heard their tale of betrayal and cruelty with a calm that was nothing but the product of willpower soldered with resignation.

The eventuality that Morgoth would send somebody had been prospected by Curufin himself. Given the loss of the Silmarils, and the loss of Sauron – the fact that Curufin knew all there was to know about Angband – Morgoth had very little leeway left to undermine their plans. “Even if somebody were to flee autonomously, their efforts would still work in Moringotto's favour, and must therefore be quashed”.

Fingolfin could still hear Curufin's voice in his head, and picture his slithery flawless appearance as he spoke. He had prayed to be spared that task, he had prayed not to come face to face with the living props of Curufin's wile so soon. Now, it fell to him to handle the incident in a wise that would not compromise the entire endeavour. They had already gone too far. There would have been no purpose in letting his misgivings and lingering scruples resurface. 

He had to play the part. 

Aegnor and Angrod pressed for the the attack to be cancelled, and for a thorough investigation of the Fëanorians and their followers.

Fingolfin pretended to be moved by their words, pretended to be alarmed – it was what was expected of him, it would have been his instinctive reaction – but replied that he would allow such a course upon condition that the thralls' testimony be reckoned trustworthy by the majority of the peoples assembled. 

“Why not handle the matter yourself? This has nothing to do with them,” Angrod protested.

“It has. They are here to fight. It would be detrimental if we resolved this in secret, and word of it still got around among them. They would conclude we are keeping things from them, it would foster panic, and most despicably...suspicion.” 

Fingolfin knew the proceeding would be a risky one, but only taking the decision out and away from the sphere of Noldorin contention could muzzle ill-feeling against Curufin (and to hush his voice in his own head), for as long as the battle required.

A council of all the leaders of every group present was therefore summoned. The impromptu gathering pulsed with uneasiness – each passing day that brought them closer to the battle added a new notch of trepidation – which magnified when the thralls were led into the tent.

The two, who turned out to be a Noldo and a Sinda, divulged a grisly enumeration of Curufin's activities in Angband, a fairly accurate one. 

“He is among you now! He will betray you too!” one of them balefully warned, fixing his pain-frenzied gaze on commanders and retainers alike. Some of them looked away. 

Maedhros sat silent throughout the long questioning. He made no response to the thralls' claims, nor reacted in any apparent fashion to the looks of horror and the mutterings directed at him and at his youngest brothers, who flanked his seat in equal muteness. 

Fingolfin often glanced at them, at Maedhros's scarred face – expression perfectly unreadable – then at his brothers'. Amrod had a deep scar where an arrow had grazed his jaw and carried off a chunk of flesh (he maintained it had been an orc arrow, but it was widely believed it had been Telerin), whereas Amras had nearly lost an eye in the clash with the Balrogs, and in the half-light of the tent, they looked like echoes unto their oldest brother.

Not surprisingly, the men of Nargothrond, who had just arrived after a gruelling march, were the most fervent supporters of Angrod and Aegnor's proposal among the many outraged voices of Noldorin lords.

Yet the instinctive mistrust against anybody who returned from Angband on their own, coupled with the no less widespread fear that Morgoth could and would interfere with the attack, counterbalanced even deep-seated hatred. The timing was reputed to be too precise not to suppose that Morgoth had facilitated the thralls' escape, the information they provided too detailed.

The Sindar were vehement, and very vocal, in their opposition, threatening to abandon the venture if their testimony be accepted. The Men of Estolad likewise rejected it. Half of them had been present at Sauron's capture, and wouldn't have said a word against the Fëanorians for awe. The Dwarves would not hear of a renunciation of the attack, or anything that would have them turn from an unfulfilled commitment.

What proved to be determining, ultimately, was the reassurance afforded by Fingolfin and Maedhros's withdrawal of corroboration to the assertion that Curufin was returned among his people.

“Thus, you are saying that Curufin and Celegorm are still...prisoners, and not at large to serve Morgoth's designs, as we have heard?” Finrod asked, looking at Maedhros, scrutinizing him, as at someone he had misjudged, and whose intentions he could not trust.

Maedhros stirred from his torpor, and his face took life again as a façade of graciousness that still contrived to mesmerise despite its glaring blemishes. 

“Only five Sons of Fëanor will take part in the battle. Rest assured of that.”

Aegnor fretted beside his oldest brother, arms crossed tightly over his chest. He rued the absence of Angrod, who along with Fingon and Maglor supervised the tactical instruction and the field drills of the troops. Fingolfin had forbidden their interruption – they couldn't let the soldiers grow restless. “And where is Caranthir?” 

“The people of Thargelion are due to arrive in three days, with the last of the Khazâd.” Maedhros nodded to Azaghâl, who nodded back.

“Why such a delay?” 

“A simple miscalculation. Celebrimbor needed more time to ready their weapons than anticipated.”

“...do you not have anything to comment on what we heard of your brother's crimes? Do you not feel an obligation to withdraw irrespective of whether they're true?” Lalwen provoked. She too, like Fingon, had noticed that Fingolfin was deeply troubled, and had resolved to be at his side at all times. She couldn't get rid of the sensation that there was something her brother was keeping from her. She didn't trust the Fëanorians' plans, how they had revealed them at the very last moment.

“Why? Even if what the thralls said were true, it would have no bearing on our commitment. I am not my brother, and I do not take orders from him or anybody else apart from your brother the High King. Besides, we would still not know under what conditions Curufin would have had to operate. I would, if anything, consider it one more good reason to attack...a very compelling one.”

“You would take up arms against him, too?”

“I would destroy anybody who stands between us and our vengeance.”

“Such is your attachment to family,” Aegnor spat.

Maedhros turned to smile sharply at him. “I am not after your goodwill, cousin, nor do I believe that our family...issues are of any consequence in the present situation, as I already stated.” The war would bring those to a close, too.

The verdict, by far not unanimous, was that all would proceed as planned, but that the Sons of Fëanor would have to report to the High King at short intervals, and always in public. Amrod and Amras's expressions conveyed their displeasure.

It was also decided that any other supposed fugitives would be treated as enemies, and kept under strict custody and continued surveillance by the High King's own men until the battle was over. 

The thralls were taken away, sputtering curses against Curufin and the rest of his family. 

“He doesn't have the heart of an elf! He's a scorpion lurking in the dark with its sting ready to strike, and he will! You will all fall by it.”

In the acute consternation that gripped the assembly, Aegnor renewed his protests, brandishing Curufin's name as if it were a scourge, as well as the pivot around which all their decisions should hinge.

Fingolfin's tolerance, already sorely tested by the conscience-rattling ordeal the mere sight of the thralls had been, by the fact that he had had to demean men who had already been misused in the most appalling ways, was at its limit. Finrod, himself unhappy with the deliberation, let Aegnor speak. Though less recalcitrant than either of his brothers, he too had displayed little enthusiasm for the venture, and had been persuaded to consent to it only by the fact that Angrod and Aegnor already had, and by the force of Fingolfin's authority. It had not escaped Fingolfin's notice that Thingol's refusal to participate had had a strong influence upon his nephew's attitude.

He rose hastily from his throne, nearly sending it flying backwards. “The war is not about Curufin!” he bellowed, and Aegnor immediately fell silent. “It is about _all_ of us, and the future of our people and our descendants. It is to ensure that Morgoth pays for what he did to us, and still does. It is to prove that we have the strength to prevail, even when malevolent powers would see us fail, that we can rise above mistrust and grudges.” He took a deep breath, and turned to look Finrod in the eye. “And if are to look for dubious loyalties, I daresay you would have your own to answer for. Is your sister not in Doriath, whose king has washed his hands of this struggle, leaving people he claims as his subjects to fight on their own? Is he not doing Morgoth's work too?”

Neither Finrod nor Aegnor dared to reply. They had never seen their uncle as angered before – the eyes that glowered at them were feral – and it shrunk all their objections. 

“You are free to leave this camp, if you will bow to fear, and discord, with whomever will follow you. I shall lead the people who want to fight regardless.”

Fingolfin strode out of tent, with Lalwen and their retainers in tow. His hands shook with rage. Lalwen noticed, and took his left hand in her right. It was not a gesture befitting of their station – not in public – and he didn't feel he deserved the comfort of her hold, either. 

“I -”

“Anybody else would have lost their patience there.” Lalwen smiled, albeit wanly, allowing Fingolfin to preserve the unsaid. “We'll see this through, too.”


	7. Chapter 7

“I want to see this through!” 

Celebrimbor screamed, hurling the glass that had been set in front of him across the room. It bounced off the wall, and shattered on the floor in a messy pool together with the last of the barley water in it. 

He had spent years preparing for the attack, toiling day and night, feverishly, without remission. He had been so absorbed by his work that he almost didn't recall a life before it. He had been putting the finishing touches to their new armours with his father not a week before. His father had made no mention of the fact that he would not be allowed to take part in the battle, and it had come as a slap when Maedhros had notified it to him before his departure. 

“Nelyo has ordered you to stay. We can't take you with us,” Caranthir repeated, while wrapping pristine bandages around his hands. He sat at the other end of the table, ostensibly unperturbed by Celebrimbor's outburst.

Celebrimbor watched his uncle's still damaged skin disappear under the thin linen. The welts and cuts had finally begun to heal, and he could move his fingers, but he was unable to hold any object yet. Not firmly, and he certainly couldn't curl his hands around a sword hilt.

“You can't even protect yourself,” he said, with more asperity than he had intended. His anger wasn't aimed at Caranthir.

Caranthir knew that, and returned the apologetic gaze Celebrimbor directed at him with a shrug. “I need to be there for show.” The troops of Thargelion were already on the march. Curufin would be the one to lead them in battle, donning his insignia. “In case someone wants to talk to me. The camp is apparently aflutter with talk on Turco and Curvo's absence...and its cause.” 

“My presence could help with that...stop the talk and assuage whatever concerns they might have.”

“Or exacerbate tensions,” Carnistir countered flatly.

Celebrimbor's lips thinned to a quivering line. He stood up. Of course his father's notoriety would reflect on him, he knew that, but he was also certain that he could shake it off, if given the chance, quash it with his dedication and contribution to the common cause. He started pacing the cold, shadowy dining room. Rooms in Himring didn't have large windows, and would have been too dark for any activity without artificial illumination. The the view from them wasn't uplifting, at any rate. Celebrimbor tried to ignore it – the brutal peaks of Thangorodrim, and the smoke they balefully vomited. The mere sight made his stomach churn. 

“Tyelpo, you already did so much.”

“Exactly because of that I need to be there...to end it."

“You have to look after -”

“I don't _have to_! If somebody has to, it's Father.” Celebrimbor's voice once again rose to a shrill cry. He would not let his love for Celegorm, and his concern over his condition be turned into guilt to hold him back. “I should be the one fighting instead of him! Let Father pull everybody else's strings, but not mine”.

“Your father too has the right to be there. He did his share of the work too”. 

“He did _too_ much, already.”

Caranthir refrained from contradicting. He couldn't fault Celebrimbor's vehemence. During Celegorm and Curufin's absence, they had grown closer than they had been before, and not simply as uncle and nephew. Celebrimbor had proven to be strong-minded and resourceful in addition to skilled, and it was a pity that he should have to fade into the background at the decisive moment, as if he had had no part in its devising. Nevertheless, Caranthir also appreciated why both Curufin and Maedhros didn't want to let Celebrimbor in the vicinity of orcs. They couldn't be too prudent.

“I promise I'll talk to Nelyo as soon as I reach the camp. But in the meanwhile you must obey the orders he gave you.”

Maedhros's orders were to ready more provisions for all contingencies, along with a strategy for a rapid evacuation of the civilian population of all their kingdoms – at need – especially the children, and to look after Celegorm. Maedhros was their king. Celebrimbor had argued with his father, and could have argued with his uncle, but he couldn't disobey his king. 

“...be careful please,” he entreated, stepping closer to Carnistir.

“I will stay put, of course,” Caranthir smiled, but noted the self-reproach lurking in Celebrimbor's gaze. He rose and gingerly put a hand to his shoulder. “You don't have to feel guilty about me.” 

Celebrimbor looked at the bandages again, the patch of white laid on the dark brown of his own shirt. Now they were clean, and stayed so for long. In the past few years they had stained with red quickly. He had often changed them himself. 

Caranthir laid a kiss to his forehead. “I'm feeling better. The Silmarilli do hold healing...and in any case, it was my decision to help you.”

“But I -”

“You didn't force me to do it, and I think the results amply make up for any pain I've endured.”

Pain was an understatement. Caranthir had been the one to patiently twine the cord he had made into a net – the net that bound Sauron – even as it had, by degrees yet persistently, scorched and carved into the skin of his hands. 

That cord was Celebrimbor's greatest achievement to date, the product of a long process started when they had resolved to defeat Morgoth by recovering the silmarils before attacking him, and though he couldn't help thinking that it would very likely not have been sturdy enough to shackle the Vala as it had originally been meant to, it had been effective with Sauron, restraining him and containing his power until his father had returned with the gems.

He had been proud to be entrusted with that task, but after Curufin had had to depart ahead of what they had originally planned his enthusiasm had blundered into apprehension. He had felt utterly lost, left to meander through the most recondite nooks of his and others' knowledge on his own, with the dreadful prospect of insuccess beckoning him together with the words of the Doom. 

He had studied all the natural and artificial materials – metals, minerals, fibres – known to the Ñoldor, and the ones the Dwarves had devised. He had made tests to determine if something with the same properties of hyperdiamonds could be turned into a substance from which to make a chain. He had researched how even unspun wool acquired resistance when twisted into fabric. He had striven to understand what made that result possible, what process came into play, and if it could be reproduced and amplified. 

After much torturous deliberation on what structure to employ, and which of the many materials at his disposal would be best suited, he had painstakingly built a scabrous, flexible cord whose resistance he had tested again and again. Making it into a tight woven net had been a means to further increase it, and relieve his own fear. Dwarves believed that intent was fundamental in creation, and that therefore building the cord with the intention of capturing a Vala and curb his power would be enough to make it possible. Their optimism inspirited him whenever he visited them, but he couldn't afford to share in it.

By the time Curufin had warned them that they would need to capture Sauron first, Caranthir's hands demonstrated that the cord could, if nothing else, permanently damage flesh.

And now Caranthir had to go to war while he was constrained to remain in the fortress. He had to talk to his father again before he left, come midday. 

“...where is Father?”

Caranthir's head snapped to face him again with a ferocity that startled Celebrimbor.

“With the prisoner,” he laconically replied.

*

The prisoner was soon to be moved into a covered cart for transportation. With his fána immobilised by Celebrimbor's net, Silmaril light had effortlessly doused his spirit like dirt thrown over a bonfire. The dying embers that remained would soon be extinguished too.

“Enjoying your last days, Mairon?” Curufin ribbed. 

There was no reply, no manifest reaction. Curufin looked up at the bound úmaia with fierce eyes, satisfaction dancing in his countenance. He hadn't seen him again after the procedure that had deprived him of speech. 

“Oh you cannot speak, not anymore, right. You were amused when I had it done to helpless thralls. Gratuitous cruelty. Petty revenge. Never thought it could happen to you. I did not either, I confess.” 

The Men had clamoured for it, and there had been no reason to deny them their gory vengeance. Sauron would have no more use for a tongue. Amlach had had it treated, and pinned it to his shield – a grim emblem of his retaliation, which set courage and hope into the hearts of those who saw it, and recognised it for what it was.

The net was still bunched around his neck after having been lowered from his face, and forced his neck up against the pole. His bleary eyes teemed with unutterable questions. Not even his mind was strong enough anymore to convey his thoughts. 

“How?” Curufin hazarded, lending him his own voice. “My father always told me that knowing one's limitations is the only way not too have any limitations at all, because once you know them, you can overcome them. I passed that conviction onto my child.”

Curufin produced one of the Silmarils, now readied to be brought into battle by Celebrimbor's craft, from a fold of his cloak. He looked at it, caressed it as he might have a loved one, gleefully aware of Sauron's dread. 

“You are surprised they do not burn me. You would have Varda as your ally now. Poor Mairon, overcome by lowly elves. Well, I am fortunate to know quite a number of things about the Silmarilli that Varda – or anybody else – does not. They are, in essence, my brothers” Curufin expounded in a mild tone, then his eyes suddenly darkened “...were they to burn me, I would hardly care. Nothing is of any import to me, so long as my father's will is put into effect,” he pressed on, and it would have been hard to tell if he was talking to Sauron or to himself. “So long as his enemies are dragged in the dust, as you will before the armies of your master.”

Curufin once more met Sauron's lacerated gaze. “We are very similar in fact, I believe, were it not for a couple minor – but crucial – divergences. You could bend, twist and break, but what you so handled would never truly be your own...it would never belong to you, or you to it. Or, at best, merely in such a manner as a tool belongs to the one who uses it. And you do not know loss. You do know how to inflict it – as I do. It is terribly easy, is it not? It takes no more than a word or a jab of your hand. But you do not know what it is like to live through it, and bear its crushing weight. Or rather -...you did not until now. Now you lose,” he enounced “...everything.” 

He lifted the Silmaril and held it before Sauron's face. The light flashed like rending lightning in the dank, gloomy cell. A soundless scream tore from the úmaia's blood-encrusted mouth. He attempted to twist in his bonds, but didn't manage more than a pitiful spasm. There was no escape. Light filled his eyes, biting brutally at he last links that kept his existence together, snapping them, effacing him by a slow, excruciating process. The fear – that alien thing which had gripped him as it became evident to him as to the elves that had captured him that he couldn't shake off the weft and warp which sunk into his skin no matter how frantically he tried – morphed into pure animal terror. 

Curufin screened the Silmaril again, and smiled. “...I admit I would have been delighted to be the one to do it, to have this Light my father swathed and nurtured consume and definitively snuff out your existence, by my will, but I shall leave the honour to Nelyafinwë. Your debt to him is much greater than to me, and the interests must be duly collected.”


	8. Chapter 8

Celebrimbor followed the long train of soldiers and wagons carrying provisions and other equipment to the Pass of Aglon, the place where his father and uncle's plan had been set into motion. He too had been there when his father had been carried away by orcs, leading a small band of archers out of those that were stationed near the Pass. His part had been to pretend to do the utmost with the men under his command to free Curufin. It didn't need to put too much effort into it. His natural instinct then had been to stop his father – kill the orcs and take him back to safety, protect him as he had been unable to protect the mother and grandfather he barely remembered. 

Now it was different. Now his father was riding one of their finest steeds in his effortlessly graceful manner, dressed in the garb of ordinary soldiers, a few paces behind Caranthir and his standard-bearer. His figure stood out distinctly against the crisp early spring air, and Celebrimbor never took his eyes off it from the moment they had set out that morning. 

When they reached the foot of the mountains that shielded Dorthonion, Curufin reined his horse to a halt and waited until Celebrimbor's horse trotted up to where he was.

“It is time,” he said, nodding his head. Celebrimbor could ride no further without disobeying Maedhros's orders. 

Words cluttered Celebrimbor's mind – well-wishes, messages to relay to his uncles, _'I love you'_ – but he couldn't force his voice to come out, because all he would have said was 'don't go', and it would have been childish of him. 

“This is no time to be dejected. Pray luck will be on our side, and once I return you can deluge me with all the remonstrations your heart harbours,” Curufin said, pulling on the reins, ready to turn his horse towards the west once again and leave. But before he did, he gazed intently at Celebrimbor one last time, and his eyes softened, filling with a tenderness Celebrimbor had seen only on very rare occasions before. 

“I am so proud of you,” were his words of parting.

Celebrimbor cocked his head feebly in assent, and remained immobile. He wanted to scream. Curufin turned his back on him and Celebrimbor watched him ride away, mingle with the soldiers heading towards the horizon. He remained there, unheeding of the puzzled uneasiness of the attendants that surrounded him, until his father was just a speck of black in the distance. His words echoed in Celebrimbor's ears. They would at other times have overjoyed him. Now, that one sentence stung like a burn.

It sounded too much like a farewell.

*

“The High King will want you to report to him straight away,” Maedhros said, welcoming his fourth youngest brother with a hug in the tent which had been quickly set up to house both Caranthir and Curufin. “Strict measures have been implemented to track our movements and insure we are not in leaguer with any of the residents of Angband.”

Caranthir made a face, but refrained from voicing his opinion on the matter, sinking into his brother's arms instead. Maedhros had succinctly related the incident regarding the escaped thralls, and Fingolfin's ensuing decision in his official letter.

“You will have to come with me to the council in the morning, too. Be always at my side. Aegnor is very impatient to meet you, and find out what took you so long.” Maedhros added, pulled back and kissed him. “How are your hands?”

Caranthir took off his gloves, and showed him the bandages. They were stained with dirt, but clean of blood. “Tyelpo helped me wrap them before I left, and I haven't changed them since,” he said, carefully flexing them. 

“He wanted to come,” Curufin said under his breath, throwing a quick glance at Caranthir's hands himself.

“Or stop his father,” Caranthir went on.

Maedhros turned towards Curufin.“I do no doubt he did. He's one of us. But he's too precious to us, no treasure to lose.”

Curufin recalled Celebrimbor's dedication, their strenuous work in the forges, his devotion. He closed his right hand to a fist, shook himself. His gaze fell on the banner strewn across the table on the other side of the tent.

Their banners were now decorated with a modified version of the fire-flower that Caranthir himself had devised, whereas their armours – as well as those of their soldiers – bore a completely new design on the breastplate featuring the Silmarils instead of the eight-pointed star. They had all agreed they should stay on the safe side: Curufin and Celegorm's armours were still in Angband and Morgoth might try to use their wonted symbol against them.

“The prisoner?” asked Maedhros, observing the new dagger his brother had just given him, laid out on the table next to an unprepossessing box which concealed the Silmarils. 

“The Men will keep him hidden until the inspection of the supplies and weapons by the High King's attendants is over, of course,” Curufin replied matter-of-factly, as a preamble to what Maedhros really wanted to hear. He came to stand next to his brother. “I have made sure he's still alive and conscious – though barely – for you to kill.”

Maedhros's fingers followed the cutting edge of the dagger, stopping at the tip. A contraction in his shoulders was the only outward sign of his reaction to his brother's words.

Curufin put his hand over his, trying to mimic the gesture Maedhros had used when he was child in need of comfort. He told himself, not for the first time, that all he had done would be repaid merely by watching his brother kill Sauron. “He will succumb to you. Then, when we attack, we can use his carcass as further weapon.”

*

Amrod and Amras levelled a gaze full of undiluted loathing at the prisoner and left the tent in haste, to keep up the pretence of a tense war-council. The tent-flap cast flickering shadows on the rugs inside Caranthir's tent as it fell shut again. 

It was the middle of night, and a few select people had gathered there to witness Sauron's death. 

Amlach had his men carry him to the tent wrapped in a heavy hempen cloth. That cloth now lay spread on the ground at Maedhros's feet, and Sauron's form was stretched out on it. He was still wrapped in the net, but the pole had been removed. In a way it had been like pulling the skeleton out of a body. He could not stand up on his own, couldn't move, and if he breathed it didn't show. His form was so shrivelled, so light, that Maedhros had no difficulty at all lifting him up with his only hand. His skin felt like dried bark under his hand.

Maedhros lifted him and held him up for long, fraught moments. His head swayed. He could have been standing on crumbling soil, or back on Thangorodrim.

Memories assailed him and the maddening desire to be rid of all surged in him. The power from the Silmaril secreted on his breast raced up his arm, filled him with father-like warmth, and turned his will to reality. 

In the exact instant Sauron's life snapped, a stifling awe seized all bystanders.

Curufin stared wide-eyed, his lips pressed together in a tight line. Maglor had closed his eyes, seemingly witnessing the event through hearing, as if he could have caught a disturbance in the Music itself.

“Quick, let's remove him from here,” came Caranthir's hoarse mutter, while he clenched his fists so tight his scars hurt anew.

The Men, stirred into motion by Caranthir's command, pried the dead Úmaia from Maedhros's grasp. 

Maedhros hung his head, still holding his breath and looked on in silence as the corpse was wrapped in the cloth, and disappeared from his sight. 

His gaze then shifted at his left hand. He curled his fingers, one by one, relishing the lingering tickle of the light, the echo of what he had just done, on them. He had expected a harsher sensation, something closer to a prickling or to the scalding promised by Varda's hallowing. But all he felt was a gentle hush that was almost serenity. For once he didn't carry the burden of responsibility, or of anything else. There were no fear, no pain, no strain. Because in that instant he hadn't acted for the good of everybody else, not even for his father and brothers. It had been utterly and earnestly for himself, and his vengeance was light as a feather.


	9. Chapter 9

The day of battle dawned cloudless and cold. 

As the sun rose from the west in her merciless calm, the din of war-trumpets rang out loud over the plain, and commanders started deploying the troops on the plain according to the plan an animated war-council had decided upon on the previous day. Finrod and his brothers were to hold the western part of the front, aided by Círdan's people, the Fëanorians were stationed in the east, together with the Dwarves and isolated Elven groups. Wedged between the two, Fingolfin was determined to keep both sides under his control. 

When Arien had risen above the line of the horizon, the two hosts faced each other, ready to engage. 

The orcs were deployed in a long uninterrupted line on the other side of the plain, seemingly numberless, their black mass one with the looming shade of the fortress at their back. 

The taunting which preceded the hostilities dragged out long enough to spike tension in both camps. It was brought to a sudden end when two Men advanced carrying a long object between them that passed for a withered tree-trunk. They stopped in front of Maedhros's horse, awaited his final command, then flung the object in the mud. It skimmed on the grass, rolled once, twice, stopping right in the middle of the plain. 

Maglor then guided his horse forward, just enough to stand out from the long line of elven armours, and shouted a single sentence in the Orcish tongue – as translated by Curufin – half a dozen words to instil terror in the orcs' hearts. 

The harsh sounds of it rang out in his smooth voice, thunder-like in the sudden silence that blanketed the plain. 

If the orcs hadn't recognised their former master before in the long thing carelessly flung on the still-green grass of Ard-Galen, they did now. The one they had feared just as much as Morgoth lay there, impotent, and would soon be trampled under the hooves of the Elves' horses. His vestiges would be trod upon until they too ceased to exist, melded into the fabric of Arda, returned to nothingness. It was a premonition of their own fate. A high, chaotic murmur rose from their ranks, but the whips of the balrogs were there to drive them, to push them into the fray. 

The battle lasted for days, hour after hour of near-uninterrupted fighting, under sun or rain, in broad daylight or in the gloom of night. 

The attacks of Glaurung and of the balrogs took many lives during the initial stages of the clash, and made it difficult for their enemies to kill the orcs too. Finrod died early on, after being caught in one of their sallies, and many among Men and Elves alike met the same fate. The Dwarves, who were more naturally resistant to fire, endured those attacks with greater steadfastness, and so the eastern side of the front remained more compact than the western. 

Food soon became scarce for the Elves and their allies. Fingolfin had taken the eventuality into account, but not how abrupt, or severe, it would be. Supplies came from Dorthonion and Himring, but not speedily enough – or abundantly enough – to meet the actual needs of the soldiers.

Amrod and Amras pressed to use the Silmarils, but both Maedhros and Curufin were adamant that the Silmarils should be reserved for Morgoth, and that they had to avoid drawing attention to them before they could be employed to attempt to kill him. 

The battle took a turn in their favour when the Dwarves managed to kill Glaurung. Azaghâl aimed for his left wing, flinging an axe at it, and the members of his personal guard did the same, until the limb cracked. Once downed, the Dwarves attacked the dragon as one and hacked at him with their larger axes, until they had hewed his cuirass, cut his head from his body and the rest of him to pieces.

With Glaurung gone, the balrogs were the next to be eliminated and after the balrogs too had all been felled, getting rid of the remaining orcs became a mere formality, and a final charge brought Men, Elves and Dwarves right in front of the Doors of Angband, with none to stop them any longer. 

The din of battle was replaced by hesitant chants of victory, and calls for Morgoth to emerge from his fortress and surrender. The chanting was purely mockery at first, a freeing cry in the wake of such a brutal battle. 

All commanders remained wary for the possible return of orcs, while at the same time making provisions to allow the soldiers to rest, to cure the wounded, and try to save those who life was on the brink. Their losses were heavy, but the healers spared no effort, and more supplies came from Thargelion and Hithlum. 

The leaders of Men welcomed the rest. Only Haleth, whose father and brother had both been slaughtered during the first successful break through the orcs' lines, pressed to attack at the earliest opportunity, seemingly indefatigable. 

The Dwarves, whose losses had been more contained, likewise urged to attack forthwith: they couldn't let the possibility of full victory devolve into a stalemate. 

“Hesitation now would nullify all our efforts,” Azaghâl maintained. He had been respected before, for his majesty and his willingness to do his part in the common struggle, but all now looked at him in awe for the piece of dragon-skin he bore in front of his breastplate. Nobody had failed to remark that Glaurung had been killed on the exact day in which the Dwarves commemorated their dead, either: the juncture had proved as auspicious as they had said. “We have to go in.” 

“I know the place,” Maedhros muttered grimly, his voice barely audible over the cry of the wind. “I will be your guide.”

The words sent an icy prickling down Fingolfin's spine, but he didn't say anything, his head bowed on his chest to ponder in silence.

Aegnor furrowed his brow, his grimace made even harsher by the wound he sported on the left side of his face. He was still reeling from the loss of his oldest brother, and just seeing Maedhros standing between Amrod and Amras riled him to the point he could barely control himself. “What of your brothers?” he hissed. “It seems strange that Morgoth has not used –” 

“What of them?” Maedhros snapped. “Look among the dead.”

Those who were hale were still recovering each corpse, the ones of comrades for burial, and those of orcs in order to strip them of iron and any other material that could be of use, before piling them up together and setting them on fire. Little green remained on Ard-Galen that had not been trampled on or burnt, and the smell of death and destruction filled the air.

Aegnor shook his head repeatedly with a quick, almost frantic movement. “They are _not_ dead. You would _not_ be standing here so calmly if they were.”

“And what would I be doing?”

“They are in your camp, are they not? What are you planning?”

“You are free to come look –”

“ _Your_ brothers are still alive and –”

“Enough,” Fingolfin said, lifting his head. “We will attack.”

It was decided that Caranthir, Fingon and Angrod would remain outside, with the wounded and those otherwise too weak to take part in a second battle, though disputes kept arising while the Dwarves found a way to breach the iron gates of Angband. 

Maglor stood by Maedhros at the head of the troops, perfectly aware of the toll going back inside the prison would take on his brother. 

As many of them as possible had been equipped with a small lamp, because the space beyond the breach was uniformly black. The torches inside Angband had all been extinguished, and the fortress was shrouded in a heavy sleep. Elves, Men and Dwarves advanced slowly, in close formation, their footsteps echoing in a stillness that was too assuaging. When they stepped into the large hallway that led to the throne room, after a long trek into nothingness, they stopped short.

There was a faint light at the other end of the corridor, pouring its muted glow onto a ghastly scene. 

The whole way to the doors was strewn with bodies of dead thralls, lined up so thickly next to one another that it would be impossible to proceed any further without trampling on them. Some lay face down, their backs a ghastly mesh of blood and bones. Some stared up at the darkness in expressions frozen in terror and torment. Some were horribly disfigured, eye-less and almost unrecognisable as people. Some had their limbs twisted at impossible angles.

The stench was as bad as the sight. 

Maedhros recoiled, seized by the urge to vomit. He took a step back and faltered. Maglor had to support him bodily, gripping his stump.

Fingolfin froze just behind them. 

Lalwen tried to walk past him, threw one hasty glance at the corpses and shielded her eyes. “Isn't there another way?” she asked in a hiss.

Maedhros took a deep breath – it echoed under the vault like a hissing rattle – his brother still steadying him. “...I d- don't know...don't remember of one.”

Curufin, who had been mingled with the regular soldiers, tried to make his way to the front among the crowd which was rapidly growing restless.

“We go on!” Maglor shouted, tugging his brother forward: going back then was inconceivable, even if they had to trample on the dead to go further.

They had barely started to tentatively tread through the corpses, and most of them were still clustered at the beginning of the hall, when one of the younger dragons broke through the wall at their left and dived at them, killing many with a burst of fire and a fell sweep of his tail, and plunging others in the chasm that opened beneath their feet together with the bodies of the dead.

Maedhros and Maglor, Lalwen, the twins and Azaghâl found themselves separated from their companions at one side of the chasm, though they didn't immediately realise it in the confusion. Lalwen drew her bow and shot an arrow right in the middle of the dragon's maw, and only when the dragon fell she realised that Fingolfin wasn't next to her anymore, or among the people that had jumped back to avoid being crushed by the mighty creature. 

Fingolfin had fallen down below, and with him Curufin. Curufin staggered to his feet, his hands groping on slimy wetness that had to be blood, but he scarcely paid any attention to that. He picked up the lamp that had fallen from around his neck and clutched it in his left hand. He knew Angband well enough, and after taking a look at his surroundings, he gingerly started to walk, picking his way among the bodies and debris. His left ankle was probably splayed, but he could withstand the pain.

He had almost made it to the archway, where he knew a door was, when somebody grabbed his shoulder. He spun around. 

Fingolfin appeared in the light, dishevelled and bloody. He looked into his eyes, and knew him.

A sudden, uncontrollable fury took over the High King, and he lunged at Curufin, sword raised, determined to kill. Curufin reached for his own sword, but he wasn't quick enough, and could not block Fingolfin's attack.

The blow was muffled by his helmet, but he was wounded nonetheless, and blood started flowing over his face, forcing him to close his left eye.

Fingolfin charged again while Curufin still reeled. His next blow shattered Curufin's left arm, which Curufin had raised to shield himself. 

When he moved in to attack next, Curufin sprang to the side and, with a swing of his right arm that took all of his strength, delivered a powerful blow to his back. Fingolfin fell forward with a loud groan, hitting his face on the ragged stone of the floor, and was still. Curufin looked down at his uncle's prone form for just a split second. He couldn't tell whether he had killed him or not. He didn't care. He had to reach the throne room. He knew the way. He couldn't give up at that moment. 

But from the darkness emerged Aegnor, who had witnessed the duel from afar.

“Traitor!” he screamed, lunging at his cousin. 

Curufin could do little else than stumble back.

Aegnor loomed over him, and he was too weak to parry his attacks. A sweep of his sword nearly hacked his left arm off his body, making him cry out in pain. 

Then Aegnor raised his sword again. It was the end. Curufin couldn't lift his own sword anymore. His left arm hung broken at his side, a dead weight which unbalanced him, and the left half of his face was covered in blood. He made a last attempt to step back, and nearly fell. And then, amidst the haze of his vision and of his mind, through the stench of blood and the pain, there was his father, his father come to save him, his father in all his glory, who knocked the sword out of Aegnor's raised hand.

Its clanking as it hit the uneven stone floor was the last thing Curufin heard before he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never written a battle scene, hence the quick summary of the battle proper here.


End file.
